What is the process of linguistic study?

What is the process of linguistic study?

The process of linguistic study can be summarized as follows: First, certain linguistic facts are observed, which are found to display some similarities, and generalizations are made about them; next, based on these generalizations, hypotheses are formulated to account for these facts; and then the hypotheses are tested by further observations; and finally a linguistic theory is constructed about what language is and how it works.